Seventeen Years Ago

Seventeen years ago, my phone rang. It was too early for someone to call, so I knew there was some kind of emergency. I picked up expecting to hear a family member's voice. Instead, it was one of the MOMS Club moms. Her voice was loud and panicked.
"Have you seen the news?"
"I haven't," I said, and turned the TV on.

"We're at war," she screeched.

To be honest, my first reaction was that she was overreacting. In the next few minutes I came to the heart-wrenching realization that while what was happening might not be an act of war, it was an act of terrorism, and the events of the day would forever change my world and that of my family.

I watched in horror as a plane hit the second tower, struggling to make sense of what was happening at the same time the morning news anchors were doing the same thing.

I remember the rest of the day vividly. I called my mother first, and then the two moms from the club who I knew were or had been flight attendants. One, crying, told me that had been her route when she worked for American Airlines, but worse, her husband was traveling and she hadn't been able to reach him. She called back later to say her husband was safe in Florida.

I don't remember the details of the second call, only that the other mom was trying to find out who of her colleagues had been on the planes.

The world went eerily silent. Planes were grounded that usually flew over our house by the hour. Cars in the neighborhood that routinely pulled out of driveways and garages carrying their occupants to work, remained immobile. The only sounds were of ringing phones and the news reports that I watched all day.

I had a meeting scheduled that I expected to be cancelled, but the client insisted we still meet. She and the other attendees came to my house, but after thirty minutes of all of us being too stunned to function, she called the meeting a waste of time and left.

Frank was two years old. The lullabies I sang to him changed that night. Instead of Rockabye Baby, I sang God Bless America, the Star Spangled Banner, and America the Beautiful.

In the days that followed, I watched the news coverage of people looking for their loved ones. The signs they held, the flowers they left, the tears they shed, and cried right along with them.

On September 17, I had a surprise party planned for Doug's fortieth birthday. I told him about it and we both agreed it would be best to cancel. I called the invitees who, one by one, told me they disagreed. Many said we needed to be together, to celebrate life, and to not allow the terrorists to "win."

We held the party. It wasn't until the last minute that we knew whether his brother would be able to fly in for it from San Francisco, but he did.

We celebrated life that night. We held our children and each other close, and no one mentioned the events of the week. They were still there, in the back of our minds and at the front of our hearts, but we let love rise to the surface instead of hate.

Each year, my brain processes through how I felt that morning, and how I've felt every year since. Every year I watch the tributes, and every year I cry.

My grandparents never forgot December 7, 1941, the day President Franklin Roosevelt called, "a date which will live in infamy." On that day, Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. The bombing killed more than 2,300 Americans.

September 11, 2001 is also a date that will live in infamy; almost three thousand people died that day or in the days that followed, because of the attack. More than 18,000 people are still suffering from illnesses linked to the dust.

I will never forget.

Inaugural Seven Peaks Music Festival

Frank and I attended the first ever Seven Peaks Music Festival this weekend. There were so many things about it that I want to remember . . . thus, this post. Leading up to the festival, we referred to it as Dierks Bentley's music festival . . . and it was, although we found out Sunday night that LiveNation had a lot to do with making it happen (and that's a separate post).

Friday
Frank and I stopped in at the festival on our way between DIA and Salida where we had rented a cabin for the weekend. We watched a little bit of Sawyer Brown, but mostly marveled at how incredibly well-organized and over-the-top amenity-filled the festival was for the first year. It seemed as though the team thought of EVERYTHING, and made it happen. I've been to a lot of music festivals, but this one was really, like I said, over-the-top.

Saturday
Kiefer Sutherland
Of every performance we saw, this one was (unfortunately) the worst. It was also the first one we saw in its entirety on the main stage. Frank and I cringed through the set, and at one point he said, "Was this guy an actor?"
"Yep," I told him.
"Oh, that explains it."
As in, how over-the-top he was, and not in a good way. Our opinion is . . . the guy should stick with what he knows.

Brothers Osborne
To be honest, I don't remember much about their performance, which kind of sucks, because I know it was really good. Maybe I have too many memories crammed into my small brain, and they just didn't rise to the top. I do remember this, Burning Man was mind-blowingly good, especially since Dierks Bentley joined them for it. (It is, after all, his song.) The other thing that stands out in my mind is that John Osborne is an amazing guitar player. So damn good. It Ain't My Fault is probably my favorite song of theirs, and performed live, it was stellar.

Miranda Lambert
I expected to enjoy her performance as headliner on Saturday night, but not to the degree I did. She is a pro. The House that Built Me brought me to tears (um . . . sobs, actually). Just thinking about it now is making me tear up. Every other song was amazing. She's talented. She's smart. She's a professional performer. She knows how to work an audience, including how to make the most of her setlist. I will now attend every show of hers I'm able to.

New Friends
We met a couple from Calgary Saturday night, who we ended up connecting with on Sunday too. They were camping on the festival grounds, and (again, unfortunately) filled us in on the things we'd never know had gone wrong behind the scenes. My only comment about this is, book a hotel/motel room early if you plan on going again next year. There were more people we met, and this is one of the truly heartwarming things about concerts and music festivals. We are all gathered together with a shared love of live music and those performing it. The connections made sometimes last for years. There's really nothing like making friends at a place like this.

Sunday
Dillon Carmichael
We saw him at the Grand Ole Opry in August when Frank and I were in Nashville to unload his car and get him moved into the dorms. It was his first time performing there and his story was extra special given that he recently had been a GOO security guard.

Anyway, he performed at Seven Peaks' smaller stage on Sunday afternoon, and Frank and I were in the front row. When he started his first song, Frank and I both sang along and the look on Dillon's face was priceless. About four songs in he looked right at us and said, "That I'm seeing some of ya'll singin' along to my songs is blown' my mind."

Check him out. He's really good. I predict this is a guy you'll hear a hell of a lot more about very soon.

Lanco
We had arrived at the festival "early" on Sunday because we really wanted to see Dillon play, but also to catch Lanco's set. They were good. The lead singer talked a little too much (okay, a lot too much), but their performance was decent. Frank and I both commented that we were disappointed, and then heard several other people around us say the same thing. It may be that there was just so much else going on that they weren't as memorable.

Dan and Shay
Confession . . . I wasn't a fan before the festival. I liked some of their songs, but they sounded a bit too much like Rascal Flatts for me (who I got really sick of after the Cars movie). Anyway, come to find out, Shay wrote a song for them.

After seeing them perform, I changed my mind. I'm a fan now. Shay is a crazy-ass-talented singer. No offense to fans of Dan, but I could see Shay having a mega-career all on his own. Especially if he's the songwriter.

Dierks Bentley - Performance Number One
When Frank told me he wanted to attend this event, I went ahead and got VIP tickets. It was worth every penny and more. We had lots of perks, like a private viewing area right at the front of the stage, and I could go on and on . . . but the absolute, positive, best part was the private acoustic performance Dierks did backstage.

We've been to a few of these, but none were like this one. In the same way he seemingly paid attention to every detail for the festival itself, he knocked this one out of the park. The day and time of the performance changed a couple of times, including Sunday night, but when it finally happened, we understood why.

It was dark when we were led backstage and around trailers and trucks and tents and all sorts of other stuff, and finally, up a hill. When we got to the top there was a table set up where we picked up signed posters, a roaring campfire complete with s'mores, and a small stage with a single microphone.

The set was acoustic. The songs he chose were amazing. The guys with him were outrageously talented singers and musicians.

And Dierks was a class act with every heartfelt word of thanks he gave to the group for their support, not just at this festival, but in all the years he's been a performer. Lots of us have been to meet and greets, other VIP events of his, and he acknowledged that we had been and that he appreciated it.

Also heartfelt . . . every word he sang.

I've been to too many concerts to remember. I keep a running list of my all-time favorite performance memories, and this made the top five, no question.

Elle King
When Dierks' acoustic performance ended, the group went back down to the main stage just in time to see Elle King.

Okay. So. Elle King. I write a lot of badass-stronger-than-shit female characters in my books. Elle King is all that times ten thousand.

The woman is badass personified. I had no idea. I also had no idea how much I've been missing not paying more attention to her music. She, like so many others who performed at this festival, is crazy-ass, out-of-this-world talented. One other comment: She looks so much like her father it's freaky.

Dierks Bentley - Performance Number Two
Frank and I have seen Dierks before. Our favorite show was the one at Red Rocks a couple of years ago. We had front row tickets. He killed it that night in the same way he killed his performance on Sunday. And then he kicked it up about ten notches. He invited several of the performers back out on the stage for a song or two, and then invited other musicians that had flown in just for that night's performance out on the stage. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us, but also for them, and it was evident. In a word . . . it was magic.

It's Different for Girls was worth the price of admission for me. It's one of my favorite songs and to see and hear it performed live by both of them was another one of those all-time favorite music memories for me.
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I think I took videos of some of the performances. I know I took a lot of photos. But here's the other thing I did . . . I stayed present in the moment. I let the music, the night air, the surroundings, and the other people there envelop me in a blanket of something I love with all my heart . . . music. To have shared this with Frank was an experience neither he nor I will ever forget.

On the drive back to the cabin Sunday night and on the way home Monday, Frank talked a little bit about the music industry, ideas he had from things he saw and learned at the festival, and seemed even more fired up to get his resume out on internships.

Which reminds me. There were several people in the VIP section who commented on how cool it was that he and I were at the festival together. I'm never shy about telling someone who comments about our obvious love of music that Frank is attending Belmont University and that his major is music business. Frank wasn't shy either about telling those who asked that he lived in Nashville, etc. EVERY person who we talked to about what he was studying, what he wanted to do with his life, shook his hand and wished him luck with sincerity and a little bit of awe. Every. Single. Person. How many of us look at a kid my son's age, with his story, and think . . . damn . . . I wish I could go back and relive that time of my life? I think the answer is a lot.

It's one life. Load it with memories. Buy the concert tickets. Take the trip. Call the friend. Whatever else it takes to warm your heart and feed your soul. I'll never look back and regret having these experiences, but I would look back and regret missing them.